


Looking back, looking forward.

by Everlarked



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Post-Mockingjay, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1554572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlarked/pseuds/Everlarked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss looks back on everything that happened in Mockingjay and her love for Peeta. She finally admits she loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking back, looking forward.

There is a heartache inside me I cannot ignore. It seems to devour me. I feel like I am trapped in an arena of my own mind where all I can think about are the hunger games and all the hurt they caused. I feel myself gasping for air and wake up screaming and soaking in sweat. When I look up I look straight into Peeta’s blue reassuring eyes. His arm is around me and he starts stroking my hair. “It’s OK,” he says, “You’re save now, you’re here with me.” I lay my head on his chest and begin to sob. “Will I ever be free of fear, Peeta?” I ask him. His voice comes in a soothing whisper. “Of course you will. We are save, you are save. I love you, I will be here, always.”  
When he’s speaking in this soft, gentle tone I feel my muscles relax and the tears stop falling. He keeps talking though. Telling me how every horror of the hunger games is in the past now. That they will never return again.   
Thinking about the return of the hunger games, I remember when president Coin asked us if we wanted them back, preposterous idea. I said yes, because of Prim. That wasn’t real off course, it was a way to tell Haymitch, so he understood that I will take my revenge on her. And I did, I killed Coin with that arrow and Snow died while laughing, choking in his own blood. When I explained this to Peeta later, he looked at me with admiration. “I thought you’d gone mad, wanting new hunger games,” he said, and I gave him a faint smile. “Course not, I’ll never want that for anyone, let alone helpless children.” But the only thing that saved me from not getting executed after killing Coin, was my madness. Dr. Aurelius declared me incompetent and I was sent back with Haymitch to 12. After a few weeks of numbness, Peeta came back. He planted primrose around my house. He baked bread, he and Greasy Sae made sure I’d live. While I was in some catatonic state I remember him sitting next to my bed though. It reminded me of the time I broke my foot and he stayed with me, next to my bed. Caressing me. One morning when I woke up I saw he fell asleep with his head on my bed. I looked at his beautiful face, the blond hair, the long eyelashes. I felt peace again. I remember the hours we spent together on the book. His sketches, my spying on him.   
Peeta opened his eyes and stared at me, I stroke his hair. “Stay with me” I whispered, and he answered with a still sleepy voice, that reassuring steady answer full of promise. “Always.”  
From that night on he brought me to bed every night and crawled in bed next to me. Holding me in his strong arms. I told him about the book and my plan to make a new book. A book to remember everyone, Prim, Rue, Finnick. All the victims of hunger games. The book gives us something to do. Peeta sketches, I write. In these still hours I find my wounds healing slowly. Haymitch sometimes joins us, more drunk than sober still, but it’s good that he’s here. He’s family too. We are survivors, hunger games survivors, the three of us.   
When I think about Gale, up in district 2, I understand now why we could never be together. From the moment of that reaping of the seventy fourth hunger games, that moment was the end for us. We’re both fighters, but nothing he ever experienced will ever make him understand what Peeta does understand. The fear, the nightmares, only his arms can protect me from that. I need him and I love him for it. Slowly, the idea of loving someone like this, becomes reality for me. It wasn’t possible before, I wasn’t capable. When he asked me if I loved him, back in 13, I couldn’t give him a straight answer. I was just incapable at that time. But I know now that the answer is yes, I have loved Peeta, since that moment in the cave in the first games when I realized I didn’t want to lose him, because of him, because of who he is. Holding out those berries, it was defying the capitol, and I wanted to go home, of course. But I knew I couldn’t ever face the world without him in it. He is a promise to me, that there is still something worth living for. And we both owe it, to the hunger games victims, especially Rue, but also Prim, to stay together and be as happy as possible. What good is winning, if it didn’t give you that. The boy with the bread, he gave me everything in the end. First that bread in the rain, the dandelion, his love for me in the first hunger games, wanting to give everything up for me in the second. His protective arms around me in my sleep.   
I remember the hole in my heart the time he was hijacked and hated me, thought I was a mutt. And later, not so much thinking I was a mutt, but a cold hearted girl who used him for her own good. That was even worse, cause I felt he finally saw me as I really am. Even though Gale tried to convince me that he wasn’t. Guilt creeps up on me every time I think about that. Peeta’s talked to me about it though, and he assured me that it was a result from the hijacking. It wasn’t him. The real Peeta has loved me always, although I don’t understand why. When he looks me in the eyes I see he loves me still and I can tell him now that it wasn’t all for my own good. I wasn’t just being selfish and using him. In the first hunger games I went to the feast, only to save his life, I didn’t have to go, I promised him I wouldn’t. He could have hold me to that promise. I went anyway, to save his life. His goal in those second hunger games was to keep me alive, but mine was the reverse. That determination of keeping him alive in both games proves I did love him back then. And I did, the idea of coming out of that arena without him almost choked me. And I knew I would be damaged beyond repair. Finnick told me he was convinced when Peeta hit that force field. I was crying so hard, he used the baby as a cover up, but I remember he looked at me quizzical. Later he explained that he thought my love for Peeta was an act, but saw at that moment that it wasn’t. I loved him, but it was just too hard for me to say it out loud, to even think it, I was too scared I might lose him. But now that threat is gone.  
Little recollections like Finnicks story assure me of my love for Peeta, and it reassures him as well. In moments of fear from flash backs I can get him back by holding him and kissing him. And reminding him of these memories we share. And he easily accepts it and kisses me in return.   
The first time that happened, we were sitting in the living room, Peeta was making a sketch. Suddenly he stopped and freezed, clasping the sides of the chair. I tried talking to him but he didn’t react. I panicked because I was so scared he would fall out of it. Then I remembered that moment in the Capitol, when we were under attack of the mutts. He froze and I wasn’t able to convince him with words, in a moment of desperation I kissed him full on the mouth and he came back to me. With that memory I bent forward and kissed him, again full on the mouth. “Come back to me,” I whispered, and he did. He looked at me in wonder and said, “you kissed me.” I smiled and then he took me in his arms and kissed me back. The hunger I felt at the beach came back, I felt the blood flowing through my body and knew that this is where I want to be.   
After a few weeks of sleeping together every night, we decide he’d move in with me. Living next door but always being here doesn’t seem to make much sense. We still live with just the three of us in the Victor’s Village, but people keep coming to District 12, and the unused houses fill themselves. It doesn’t seem logical to keep on both houses, as one is big enough to store ten families in. We do the roasting of the bread, like Peeta told Ceasar Flickerman in his interview. Haymitch is there, he teases me about me not being good enough for Peeta. Peeta disagrees, but I know he is right.   
Now we are back on track again. I found out who I am slowly. I am Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, the Mockingjay, I love Peeta, he loves me, we will stay together forever.   
He wanted to give me everything and in return he got everything he ever wanted. To see that in his eyes makes me happier than ever. And I remember my dying wish: to keep Peeta alive. I succeeded in that, and even more. Alive and happy. And strange enough, so am I. So every time he asks me, “You love me, real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.”


End file.
